Thursday, June 28, 2007

FireFox XX Bug

Have you noticed list boxes across the Internet displaying "XX" items in FireFox? If so, you're browsing with FireFox's latest browser release (2.0.0.4), which introduced that annoying little bug a few weeks ago. The bug, which has been confirmed by the FireFox team, adds a "XX" dummy item to empty list boxes on a page if they are modified by JavaScript. The root cause of this bug appears to be the solution that was implemented for another bug, but thankfully the FireFox team has already created a patch that fixes the problem. The next security update release for FireFox will contain this fix and remove the annoying little Xs from the web.

So, if you have any applications with listboxes (like most of us do) and you start to get reports from your users about these weird "XX" items, feel free to pass the blame on to the FireFox team. For an immediate solution, the patch that should ship with the next security release is available for download.

Wednesday, June 27, 2007

Sitefinity SP1 released

It's a busy week for service packs at Telerik and not looking to be left out of the buzz is Sitefinity, which released its first service pack today. This service pack introduces a number of new features and controls to the accelerated web development platform. Among the new enhancements are:

  • Multi-lingual support for pages
  • New DynamicHyperLink control
  • New SiteMenu control
  • New SiteTreeView control
  • New SiteTabStrip control
Beyond new controls and features, the team also fixed a number of significant bugs that had been identified since the original release of Sitefinity 3.0 back in May. For a full list of new features and bug fixes in SP1, be sure to visit the SP1 release notes and then download your copy of SP1 at Sitefinity.com.

RadControls for ASP.NET SP2 released, WinForms SP2 delayed

The second service packs for the ASP.NET and "Prometheus" RadControls have been released (a day late due to some problems with the web site downloads). The latest service packs primarily focus on delivering bug fixes and performance enhancements across the controls, but there are some new features. Here are some highlights from the yet to be published release notes:

  • Handful of bugs fixed in RadAjax, including problems with Redirects
  • New features and enhancements in RadDock "Prometheus"
  • Improved Cancel button functionality in RadUpload
  • Improved JSON serialization performance across all controls
  • New property added to RadTabStrip that enables per-tab PostBack settings
  • (Full release notes should be online at the above link soon)
Meanwhile, the RadControls for WinForms SP2 release has been delayed until next week. The dev teams needed a few extra days to run final QA on the new code and decided to officially delay the service pack until next week so that they can provide timely support after the release (Fridays are usually bad for service pack releases because of the weekend). We apologize for the last minute change in the schedule, but we hope the improved quality of the release will be worth the wait.

Download the latest releases from Telerik.com

Tuesday, June 26, 2007

Christmas in June: free license for PeterBlum VAM

Here we are, half way through 2007 (can you believe that?!), and six long months to go before Christmas. Telerik has decided to help you make it through the rest of 2007 by bringing you Christmas in June. We have partnered with Peter Blum to extend an incredible offer to Telerik customers. If you have a Telerik RadControls subscription, you will be able to get a free site license for Peter's VAM: Essential Validators (a $250 value). You will also be able to upgrade to the Pro VAM suite with an exclusive 20% discount (up to $200 value).

If you've never used Peter Blum's controls in the past, then you may not know that his controls are consistently the top rated data input and validation controls by ASP.NET developers. The Essential Validators being offered here have 14 different validators, but Peter offers more than 40 in the full Pro suite. Obviously, these controls are a great compliment to the RadControls for handling all of your advanced validation needs.

This offer will run through July 31st and is available to all RadControls subscription holders. If you've been waiting for a good great reason to upgrade your RadControls trial to a subscription, this is definitely it. Watch for a link to the free license sign-up page in the June issue of Telerik's Newsletter (which should be arriving in your Inbox this week).

View full offer details


Sign-up for free license offer now

Telerik Reporting demos online

One of the best ways to explore Telerik's ASP.NET products is by visiting the online Quick Start Framework (or QSF) demos. What you may not know is that there is also a full set of QSF demos online for Telerik Reporting. That's right, without downloading or installing any software you have the ability to browse through the functionality of Telerik's newest product and begin to see what you're missing in your applications. The online QSFs use Reporting's ASP.NET report viewer, but there is also a WinForms viewer that enables you to easily display reports offline if that's what you require.

Don't have a Reporting license? Then you definitely need to visit the QSFs and download your free trial to participate in the official Reporting Challenge. If you answer at least 7 of the questions correctly in the challenge, you get a free Telerik Reporting license. Hard to beat that.

Friday, June 22, 2007

RadControls for Silverlight CTP available Tuesday

If you're just itching to get your hands on some early RadControls for Silverlight 1.0 (not 1.1) bits, then you're going to love this announcement. The Silverlight team publicly announced today that the first Silverlight CTP from Telerik will be shipping next Tuesday, June 26th. The CTP will include all of the controls that are currently in the Silverlight online demos (such as buttons, a StripLayoutPanel, and the infamous Cube) and a new enhanced media control that we first revealed at TechEd.

These controls target the 1.0 version of Silverlight that should be shipping later this summer, so there is no .NET integration at this point (that comes in AG 1.1). There are also no official announcements with this CTP regarding a ship date for Telerik's first Silverlight control suite. That information will be available later this summer as we evaluate our plans for 1.0 and 1.1.

For now, jump over to Telerik.com and sign-up for the Silverlight CTP so you can check everything out next week.

Wednesday, June 20, 2007

second look: RadControls in "Orcas" Beta 1

It has been about 3 months since I last looked at the RadControls in Visual Studio "Orcas", and since that time a new pre-release version of the IDE has been loosed on the public. In "Orcas" Beta 1, a number of things that were wrong with the March CTP have been greatly improved and the new Visual Studio is really starting to come into its own.

As in the March CTP, the RadControls continue to work fine in the new beta. The toolbox still has to be manually updated with the RadControls, but beyond that the controls seem to work fine in Design, Split, and Source view.

JavaScript IntelliSense
One thing that has been greatly improved in the last 3 months, though, is JavaScript IntelliSense (excuse me, JScript IntelliSense). You may recall that in March I had a very difficult time getting IntelliSense to work correctly due to the unsightly TypeLibBuilder errors. In this beta, those problems have been corrected and JavaScript IntelliSense worked right from the get go.

It is clear, though, that JavaScript IntelliSense is going to be most beneficial for writing standard JavaScript code and ASP.NET AJAX client-side code. Using the JavaScript IntelliSense for working with the RadControls (at least in the current form) is still a little impractical, mostly due to the challenges of getting your ASPX pages to reference the JavaScript files embedded in the RadControl assemblies.

In order for JS IntelliSense to work, your JavaScript file must be statically available to Visual Studio at design time. And while there are some methods for theoretically referencing the embedded resource at design time, they still present the problem of attaching a JS file to your page that you do not need. Michael Schwarz proposes a work around on his blog, but it is definitely hack that you're unlikely to want to do all of your projects.

Nonetheless, JavaScript IntelliSense (when configured with your JS files correctly) works as advertised and is very cool. If nothing else, it will be a great tool for exploring the RadControl client-side libraries and discovering client-side features that you may have otherwise missed.

Unit Testing
One announcement that I missed back in March was that the unit testing tools previously exclusive to Visual Studio Team Suite would start to be included in the Pro versions of Visual Studio "Orcas". This is a great move by the Visual Studio team to help make unit testing more accessible to all .Net developers, and frankly it is long overdue.

The latest "Orcas" beta is a Professional edition product (versus the Team Suite edition that I reviewed in March) and it already includes the new unit testing tools. These tools, while familiar to TFS users, are a huge improvement for all Visual Studio users and make the process of creating unit tests very easy. The tools enable you to either write your test cases ahead of time (standard Test Driven Development practice) or use a wizard to generate test stubs for existing code (very cool time saving feature that's hard to find in other tools).

The addition of unit testing tools to Pro editions of Visual Studio may be the most compelling reason to upgrade when "Orcas" ships later this year (or "very" early next). While many of the other improvements in "Orcas" are incremental in nature- simply improving what has been possible in the past- the unit testing capabilities add a whole new dimension of functionality to the product for a majority of its users.

Conclusions
Visual Studio "Orcas" is definitely shaping up to be a solid and worthwhile upgrade. RadControls integration continues to be solid and any lingering problems will definitely be resolved with the official release of the IDE. To see some of the new features discussed in this review in action, be sure to check out my new screenshot gallery full of screenshots and comments. You can also try the beta for yourself by downloading all eight parts here.

View screenshot gallery of "Orcas" beta 1 review

another round of service packs due next week

It has almost been a month since the last round of service packs was released for the RadControls and the Telerik development teams are already putting the finishing touches on round two. Service Pack 2 for the Q1 2007 WinForms, ASP.NET, and "Prometheus" RadControl suites will be hitting your Client.net accounts in about a week with a release scheduled for Tuesday, June 26th. These service packs will primarily focus on performance improvements and bug fixes across the controls, though a few new features may also be included.

The RadScheduler preview, which will be part of the "Prometheus" suite when it ships, will not be part of this service pack release. Rather, it will probably be made available in early July as a separate download in yet to be announced "new" area of Telerik.com. More on that in the coming weeks.

For now, set your Outlook reminders and log-in next Tuesday to download SP2.

Monday, June 18, 2007

in case you missed it: part I

It is challenging maintaining two blogs targeted at (generally) the same readers covering (at times) similar material. While my blog on Telerik.com is supposed to be for more "technical" articles (versus the "news" that I bring to you here), there are times when interesting "newsy" posts end up on Telerik.com that I don't want you to miss. To help reduce the amount of manual content syndication between the two blogs, I'll occasionally (maybe every month or two) make a post on Telerik Watch that highlights some of the better posts being made on my Telerik.com blog.

To get things started, here are a few interesting posts from the last month that you may want to check out:

If you don't want to miss any future updates on my other blog, be sure to add the feed to your reader of choice today!

more RadScheduler details

As promised I have a new batch of RadScheduler details for your viewing pleasure. If you were at TechEd then this is nothing new, but for the rest of you this is your first chance to see the early progress being made on Telerik's newest component.

In short, the RadScheduler is shaping up to provide all of the features you'd expect to find in scheduling component. Recurrence, day/week/month views, drag-and-drop tasks- it's all there. So what will make RadScheduler different from existing scheduling components (other than obvious benefits of being a Telerik produced and supported component)?

Quite simply, we are aiming to blend the best of "web 2.0" scheduling tools (think Google Calendar) with the tried and true features of traditional scheduling tools (like Outlook). Many of the current scheduling tools on the market aim to replicate Outlook exactly on the web. While this will be possible with our component, we want our out of the box configuration to move past the "old school" dialog heavy scheduling components and provide a rich, interactive, Ajax-enabled scheduling experience.

Furthermore, RadScheduler will also be a very flexible tool. You will not be locked-in to a Telerik defined data model, so it will be easy to use RadScheduler with your existing scheduling data. If you don't have existing data, you'll be able to drop a RadScheduler on your page (note: this is a single, easy to work with component instead of a complicated collection of components for scheduling) and connect it to an XML file for instant scheduling support in your web app.

The first preview release of this component will be available in a few weeks and the "final" version will ship in Q2 (end of September). What do you think so far?

View RadScheduler Preview Screenshots

Friday, June 15, 2007

RadControl road maps updated for Q2

Now that the Q1 release is a thing of the past (and the first round of service packs is already released), it's time to start talking in more detail about the Q2 2007 release. This release is due in late September and it will be almost as big as the Q1 release with updates (and new products) for WinForms, ASP.NET, "Prometheus", and Reporting. Here's the public highlights so far:

RadControls for ASP.NET

  • New major version of RadGrid (v5)
  • New image control will be delayed (will not be in Q2)
  • More major improvements to RadChart (such as smart labels)
RadControls "Prometheus" for ASP.NET
  • New controls: RadScheduler (v1)
  • New major version of RadEditor (v8)
    • Featuring new optimized loading mechanism for client-side features
  • "Prometheus'd" versions of RadWindow, RadUpload
RadControls for WinForms
  • Major performance optimizations for all controls
  • New features for RadGridView (such as hierarchal data support)
Telerik Reporting (due in October)
  • New report wizard
  • New report items: HtmlTextBox, Table
  • Support for hierarchal data
  • More support for expressions
  • Export to Excel (CSV) support
  • Support for passing parameters into a report
This is not an exhaustive list of Q2's impending improvements by any standard, so expect more details in the coming weeks. Only 15 weeks to go before the next big release!

Telerik RadControls Support Lifecycle published


While I was away at TechEd, one of the news items at Telerik was the official publication of the Telerik RadControls Support Lifecycle (or TRSL for short). Similar to Microsoft's Support Lifecycle policies, the TRSL aims to give developers (you) a very clear and transparent plan for how Telerik will support "old" versions of its software. With this information, there should be no surprises regarding when support for an old framework version ends. You should be able to make plans well in advance of a product's "sunset" date and make the necessary arrangements to upgrade your projects as necessary.

This policy formalizes what has been the general practice up to this point at Telerik. With .NET 1.x increasingly less common, though, and .NET 3.5 just around the corner we thought it was very important to make it clear how we will transition our support for these different framework versions. We've tried to make things as clear as possible on the policy page, but if we've missed something please don't hesitate to contact us for clarification.

We look forward to helping you leverage all of the latest technologies Microsoft has to offer and to helping you support your existing applications. Hopefully this policy will help make it clear exactly how we will try to achieve that balance.

Friday, June 08, 2007

Telerik at TechEd (part 2)

A busy week at TechEd is now over and in its wake are some sore feet and a great showing of Telerik's latest products. I had hoped to blog more often during the event, bringing you frequent updates from the floor. Unfortunately, or perhaps fortunately, things were so busy during the week (with demos in the day and TechEd parties at night) the updates did not make it online. Nonetheless, there is still some great information to share and I will be blogging "double time" when I get back to the office (where I'll be very happy to sit after a long week of standing).

To get things started, I've uploaded some more pictures of Telerik at TechEd 2007. There are a couple of pictures in this post and about 20 more in this online gallery. You can see we had a great time visiting with all of the TechEd attendees- some our fans, some new to Telerik- and we look forward to seeing even more of you next year. You can also see our very popular t-shirts (the blue "geeket" T for girls and the black ".NET Superstar" shirt for everyone) and Telerik green bean bags.

The end of a long day.

People waiting for the big bean bag giveaway

The "stars" of Telerik's TechEd presentations this year, though, were RadControls for WinForms and the sneak preview of RadScheduler for ASP.NET. Many people that stopped by our booth were amazed at the stunning WPF-like visuals that the Telerik controls for WinForms are delivering. In fact, even some Microsoft employees were in disbelief that the RadControls for WinForms were not using WPF to deliver their next generation visuals. Needless to say, if you haven't checked out the WinForms stuff from Telerik lately, you should!

The RadScheduler sneak preview was also popular. The control is still early in its development cycle, but a public "beta" (it will actually be more like a CTP) should be available online in a few weeks. I will provide more details on the upcoming control along with some pics in a future post.

And that's all from Telerik TechEd 2007 (for now)! Stay tuned for more updates in the coming days and start making your plans to come visit us next year, June 9-13th in Orlando again.

Tuesday, June 05, 2007

Telerik at TechEd (part 1)

Telerik, as you already know, is in full force at TechEd 2007 and so far this year's event is going very well. There are 11 of us from the Telerik team in Orlando this week, 9 of which made the long journey from Bulgaria to come show-off the latest and greatest we have to offer (like a preview of the new RadScheduler for RadControls "Prometheus" and some never before seen Silverlight previews).

I will be making a few updates this week from the event- in fact, as I type this I'm sitting in our bright booth watching the hordes of attendees gather, waiting to be released on to the expo floor. For now, I'll leave you with a pics of the Telerik booth and crew and bring you more details on the demos we're doing here (along with some more photos) later this week.




Friday, June 01, 2007

Join us at TechEd

TechEd 2007 is just days away and so is your next opportunity to hang out with some Telerik staffers. The developers and team leads from Bulgaria have already started their long journey to Orlando for the event (I do not envy their travel schedule) and I will be heading out tomorrow to join them. When all the activity starts on Monday, come find us at booth #515 and check out the latest from the Telerik "labs".

We'll have some never before seen demos of the Telerik WinForms controls and Telerik's new Silverlight controls at our booth, so you'll definitely want to take time to find us. I'll begin blogging some of these items next week. We are also the bean bag sponsor at this year's TechEd, so if you think you've already seen everything we have to offer you can at least come by to win a prize.

I look forward to meeting some of you next week. Drop me a line if you want to meet formally at the event at todd [dot] anglin [at] {nospam} telerik [dot] com (remove the "nospam" part to get the correct address...you can never be too careful with Internet address scrapers). See you there!

P.S. If you're in town on Sunday night, you can find the Telerik crew at the "Party with Palmero". Telerik is one of the sponsors for this event, so have a good time. It's (partly) on us!

announcing Telerik Reporting challenge

That's right. It's time for another fun Telerik challenge, this time for the new Telerik Reporting product. This new contest begins today and runs through July 13th and it is your opportunity to win some prizes just for checking out Telerik Reporting. To compete in this competition, you need to visit the official Telerik Reporting Challenge page and fill out a short 11 question survey. You'll need to download and install Telerik Reporting to complete the survey (obviously), so make sure you stop by the Client.net area and download your free copy of Reporting before doing the survey.

First prize in this challenge is a 19" NEC LCD monitor, but everyone who gets at least 7 of the 11 survey questions right gets a free Telerik Reporting developer license (which is probably worth more than the monitor). Do yourself a favor and take a few minutes to try Reporting and complete the challenge survey. It will be the easiest $400 prize you've won all week!